A Path of Joy – Popping into Freedom
With wit and humor, Paramananda Ishaya shares his experience of popping into freedom in his first book. He also explains what it takes for you to pop.
His analogies to people being like popcorn led me to buying some popcorn, popping it in my hot air popper, and eating it to see what I would experience.
Yes! The Silence DOES pop me – into silent awareness with surprise revelations and sometimes a fresh perspective that simply makes sense. Also, having others around me being transformed by the Stillness – bouncing in the hot air of the popper – enriches my experience. And so does the yummy popcorn with butter and salt.
While reading Paramananda’s words, my experience deepened into the Silence. His words thoroughly immersed me in it, which lead to some popping experiences of insight.
He is effective in being able to relate his experiences which have no words because they are of the Silence. He reiterates that, after all, we are already the Stillness, we simply need to recognize it to be free. It is a gift to speak of the varieties of experience from the Stillness so that it can be recognized – thank you Paramananda. It is a rare thing to communicate the ineffable so that the reader experiences it because there is so much conceptual writing about the experience that is beyond words in current body-mind-spirit writings.
“Paramananda” means the highest bliss in Sanskrit. His experience was decidedly NOT that growing up – he was diagnosed with anxiety at an early age, and for years never wanted to get up in the morning because he did not want to face life. He explains how he slowly changed as he used the meditation techniques of the Ishayas. Today he radiates fun and humor as he embodies his name – the highest bliss. It comes through the pages of the book.
Here are some insights and excerpts from his book, showing his insight and perspective. Enjoy!
The Popcorn Effect
To make popcorn, you need kernels and a popcorn maker. To make freedom, all you need is you and silence. Silence is all you need to pop – it’s that easy.
This popping is fully coming into the aliveness of all there is. Then we transcend that which we think we are in order to see what we are. It could be an intense surge of bliss, a calm soothing peace or an ocean of love. It can even appear as the “no big deal” of nothingness. However it comes to you, it is certain to be a coming into what you truly are!
This popping effect is happening right now as more of us discover the simplicity of the path of joy. Some have already popped, some are in the process of popping, and some will pop one day. Once you pop, you just can’t stop; this popping is uncontrollable once set in motion. It is not hot air, however, but stillness that brings about this awakening or popping. The stillness of being is all we need to reach the highest bliss.
He should know – being Mr. Highest Bliss.
Finding the Path
Why not invest in what doesn’t change? This is literally the most important thing you can do for yourself, and more than that, for everyone around you, me included. When you focus on peace, you take a load off our backs. I don’t have to worry so much about you anymore.
Before I started to make that investment, I would wake up to my alarm every day with suicidal feelings; I was praying to die, begging for some relief. The thought of getting up was awful. Just before waking up was peace – the peace of sleep that I craved because I disappeared into the sweet abyss of nothingness. What if you could have this peace of sleep in the waking state?
Then one day a miracle happened! When the alarm went off, I did not want to kill myself. I was not as bothered by those familiar sensations and the thoughts of depression. They were there but seemed somehow less relevant now. I began my morning with meditation attitudes and a hit of coffee, and I was off on the path of joy.
Little miracles happen when we value peace in our lives. I truly believe they began to happen because of my intense desire and commitment to meditation.
Being
If we have been lucky enough to taste the stillness, it can enliven a magnetism or drawing power within us. It is an attractive power, so attractive that millions of people have dedicated their lives to searching for it. Even though we are often misled by ideas of truth or the desire to attain something outside ourselves, the stillness remains, underlying all the ideas and desires and the searching itself. The apparent twists and turns on the path are also the beautiful dance of nothings (being) looking to be somethings (content).
In life, everything comes to us exactly so that we can keep choosing to move toward freedom, and “what we resist persists.” Have you noticed the same pattern happening over and over again? Even if we see the pattern and are trying to let it go, it just keeps popping up, especially if it is one we badly want to be rid of. Underlying those patterns is a thought such as, “If I could only get rid of this, I would be free or have more peace!” Is there anything we can do to speed up this process?
Allowing
Can you imagine what it would be like to allow your experiences without trying to change them? If it seems difficult, it is only because you feel as if you need to do something with your experiences. That’s okay! Why not allow that feeling and see what happens? You may not be free according to your idea of freedom, but you can certainly pretend to be free or to act as if you are. Freedom starts with allowing.
Compassion
Compassion is the fuel that dissolves all obstacles, even when those obstacles are so subtle they can’t be seen.
Nothing is so special that it can’t be let go of. Only by letting everything go can we enter the aliveness of being. As we dissolve in the silence, we are being pulled along an infinite expansion of consciousness and de not have to get stuck at any particular point in the infinite. Though it is nice to be stuck in awe at the door to Heaven, let’s not forget that it is just the doorway. You can stop drooling and keep walking further into Heaven.
Staying on the Razor’s Edge
Being completely content with where we are right now is a rare thing. Without contentment, we will always be trying to change our experience to get a better, shinier one. Separate individuals desire to be better and will never be satisfied because their nature is to seek out a different experience from the one that is happening right now. What is happening now is never enough.
Paradoxically, what is happening now is the invitation to contentment, the seed to losing ourselves in the silence. What is happening now is the vehicle for liberation; it is an opportunity for grace, surrender, and fulfillment.
What was eye-opening for me was letting go of the idea of needing more experiences to wake up. I felt I needed to cleanse my wrongs, secretly confess my sins, or purify myself. It felt as if my soul needed a serious karmic cleansing of all the stuff I had trapped inside. The problem was, I had a storage unit made up of memories, feelings, and concepts about the soul and karma that was big enough to keep me purifying forever.
A Path of Joy
We sometimes mistake moments of joy that come and go as bliss. These moments are not the same as the permanent, unchanging, unmoving bliss that is the root of all moments of joy. Chasing and grasping happy experiences only gives us a superficial taste of bliss. The objects of reflection in the mirror are not the mirror itself. What is looing at the image in the mirror is the faceless bliss of self. This faceless self is the unknown and sublime death of all concepts. When there is nothing left to hold onto, what remains?
The world is full of bliss, and the root of bliss is unknown. Simply enjoy it.
The path of joy is an effortless rise beyond limitation to experience the silence any time we choose. Continued exploration of the silence results in the experience of perpetual perfection and the awareness of the holy instant. Finally dissolving all barriers, illusions, and separation as the door expands to unity, our awareness becomes infinity expressed in everything – an experience of infinite unity forever unfolding in perfection and bliss.
Did you think we just pop and that’s it, game over? The real game is just beginning.
From trying to escape anxiety to experiencing Joy
It was my hobby to find ways of escaping the pain of my life. I tried escaping through relationships, frappuccinos, drugs (some legal such as social anxiety medications), and alcohol. When that didn’t work, I turned to the many spiritual books and spiritual teachers. Eventually, I became a spiritual addict, spending all my time and money at the local New Age bookstore picking up crystals and the next book I thought was going to give me that enlightenment beam. I saw finding God as my only way out. In some ways it seemed as if I was making progress, but in others I was getting worse.
When observing the movements in my mind, I noticed that the energy would come, and right away I would think, “Oh shit, here it is,” and label it as anxiety. Then my mind would go to the past and think, “I’ve had this anxiety my whole life.” Then my mind would go to the future, and I’d wonder, “When will I ever get rid of this anxiety?” You need to see this for yourself; through your own experience, observe what you do with this energy.
I saw my whole process of labeling applied to the past and the future. I would apply it in these directions instantly when the energy labeled “anxiety” came up. As I became familiar with this pattern, which happened in the auto-puppet mode, I started to catch it before it took me over. Then next time the energy came, I took a moment while I was experiencing it to just watch it innocently without labeling it or thinking of the past or future.
While watching the mind with innocence and without infinite commentary, I laughed as I saw that the same energy was infinite joy. It had always been joy my whole life, from childhood right up until that moment. Then I saw how simple it all was.
How You Can Pop
Pick up a copy of Paramananda’s book if you would like to be inspired and led into the Silence. See what might pop in you!
Please feel free to share your comments on how you are popping into freedom below.
If you would like to go further into experiencing the Silence, check out an Ishayas’ Ascension beginning course at the website TheBrightPath.com There is no book which can replace the experience of being led to the Stillness by Still teachers and a simple technique. Then you can discover what this popping is while resting in the Stillness.
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